


Keep Your 'Lectric Eye On Me, Babe

by grocketinmypocket



Series: Press Your Space Face Close To Mine, Love [4]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Bestiality, Dramora - Freeform, Established Relationship, F/M, Group Sex, If You Don't Think Peter Quill Is Pansexual We Can't Be Friends, M/M, Oral Sex, Rocket Considers Slut A Term of Endearment, Roquill - Freeform, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 13:39:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2430845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grocketinmypocket/pseuds/grocketinmypocket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What are you doing?" Drax asked calmly, while Gamora watched Peter slowly take Rocket's cock out of his mouth and lower him from his shoulder to be cradled against Peter's chest, shielding him from their view from the waist down.</p>
<p>"Quill's suckin' my cock, what's it to you?" Rocket snarled. </p>
<p>"Sex pollen," Peter said. "Groot is sick and he's barfing up sex pollen. You have about ten minutes of rational thought left, now that you're in here. Enjoy it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Your 'Lectric Eye On Me, Babe

**Author's Note:**

> **BAD NEWS, FOLKS. My fics are officially being abandoned. I'm sorry that I won't be finishing them, but my life has changed a geat deal in the year or so since my fics were written and I no longer have the time to write for fun.**
> 
> I've been holding this fic back for quite a while now, hoping I would be inspired to finish all the planned chapters of ["Don't Fake It Baby, Lay The Real Thing On Me,"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2243013) but that does not appear to be happening. I hope this fic, which will be finished in two chapters, will make up for my tardiness at updating my other open series.

"Why is this happening?" Peter demanded in a childish whine, kicking drifts of shell-pink blossoms out of his way as he trudged through the galley. "These things are everywhere. I can't understand why Groot is doing this, I thought he was over the teenage 'pollinating everywhere' stage now that he's full grown ag--" He stopped cold when he stepped on something hard, metal, and round-ish. He waited to see if his foot and/or his ship were about to blow up, then dug the offending object out of the drifts of petals littering the floor and set it resentfully on the counter. He had no idea what it was, but it was half the size of his palm and could probably kill every single person on the ship and blow their mutilated corpses out into space. Or destroy a small planet, one or the other. "One of these days Rocket's gonna kill us all because we stepped on some kind of exotic superweapon he left on the fucking floor."

"You may approach him about the subject, but I will not." Drax flexed one massive shoulder, obviously still nursing a set of hurt feelings to match the teeth marks Rocket had left the last time Drax lectured him about leaving gun-oil-soaked rags in Drax's clean galley. There had been a team meeting about biting, and Rocket had refused to participate on the grounds that a no-biting rule was unfair, since Gamora had bitten him and no one called a stupid team meeting about _her_ , and then Gamora had gotten up and left and by then it was no longer a meeting and Drax wished for Peter to explain one of the more vivid metaphors Rocket had used in his threats of bodily harm and Peter had crammed his headphones onto his head and left too. That had been the last attempt at a team meeting.

It had never worked with the Ravagers, either.

"Right now, I don't even care about that. I care about the fact that Groot is drowning us in fucking flowers like it's the fucking Rose Parade!" Peter's attempt at a reasoned, calm voice had escalated into an offended howl by the end of the second sentence. "There are fucking flowers everywhere! In my bunk, in the cockpit, in the shower, in the heat exchangers -- I pulled down my fucking pants last night and there were petals in my fucking underwear! How did they get there? WHO FUCKING KNOWS. It smells like a goddamn whorehouse in here, there's pollen on everything, and all the food tastes funny now." Peter threw his arms up in defeat, ending in a pouty slump against the edge of the counter.

"Perhaps you should discuss it with Rocket," Drax suggested mildly, sitting placidly at the galley table with his ever-fucking-present knives, drifts and piles and dunes of pretty pink petals covering his feet to the ankle. "Rocket can comprehend Groot's meanings; perhaps if we question Groot with Rocket's assistance, we may find an end to this distressing circumstance."

Peter's boot fetched up against the big, bulky signal jammer Rocket used to pop open mag-locked doors, buried under the layer of blossoms on the floor, and he cursed heatedly, becoming more and more righteous in his fury that there were pretty pink flowers everywhere on his ship, cooking merrily away inside the engine's innards and making the whole place smell like his Great-Aunt Lilly's potpourrii warmer set on high. Someone was going to answer for this, namely Groot, and Groot could not, in fact, answer on his own without Rocket to translate. Ergo, Rocket was coming downstairs and explaining this utter bullshit, with or without physical violence.

That decided it. "TEAM MEETING! GALLEY, NOW," Peter bawled out. "Rocket, you and Groot get down here!"

No answer. 

"Rocket!" Peter stood up and walked over to the bottom of the stairwell leading up to the Milano's cockpit. The inner cockpit doors at the top of the steps were closed, and the readout showed that the secondary life support system was engaged inside, completely isolating the cockpit's atmosphere and oxygen supply from the rest of the ship.

"What's wrong?" Gamora asked, entering the galley with her expression already set to "undisguised disgust at the prospect of yet another team meeting ritual" mixed with "continued mild but stinging disappointment in Peter as a leader and in his life choices in general."

"Rocket is ignoring Peter's entreaties to join our ritual," Drax said.

"Drax, no, it's, it's a meeting, it's not a -- whatever. Rocket has the cockpit sealed up and the secondary oxy and pressure are running."

"Why?" Gamora asked.

"I don't know!" Peter wheeled around and slapped the internal comm button on the wall. "Rocket, why is the cockpit closed up? Get down here, we're having a team meeting." Thinking back, Peter realized that Rocket had volunteered for a double shift at the helm, claiming he was having trouble sleeping. That the inner airlock doors at the top of the stairs could have been shut for hours without anyone noticing also occurred to Peter, though why Rocket would feel the need to do such a thing, Peter had no clue. Generally the only reason to isolate the cockpit from the cabin was an emergency of some kind.

"I'm flyin' the ship, Quill, fuck off."

"Rocket, we need you to come down here, and bring Groot, we need to talk to him. Just set the autopilot, it'll be fine." 

"No. Me n' Groot are stayin' right here. Fuck your stupid meeting, you fascist prick." The comm buzzed with a dead connection as Rocket turned it completely off.

"What does that even _mean_?" Peter wondered out loud, and then remembered that he'd had a good start on being angry before Rocket hung up on him -- now he was furious. "He can't lock me out of my own cockpit -- HE CAN'T LOCK ME OUT OF MY OWN GODDAMN COCKPIT!" Peter howled, throwing aside double handfuls of petals maniacally as he searched the floor for the signal jammer that Rocket always left rolling around underfoot all the fucking time, he'd just stubbed his toe on the fucker five seconds ago -- finding it, he turned to the others. "I'm gonna open that door, and then we're gonna drag him out of there and tie him up if we have to but he is going to COME. TO. THIS. MEETING."

"I'm not going up there," Gamora stated flatly. "He bites."

"So do you," Drax reminded her. Gamora answered him with one of the Terran gestures Quill had taught them, and Drax threw up his hands in disgust.

Peter turned and charged up the steps to the cockpit, hammering on the doors with the end of the heavy signal jammer. "Rocket, you better open these doors right now or so help me I am going to --"

"I can't," Rocket called, voice muffled by the airlock, and Peter lowered the tool.

"You can't open them? Is it a malfunction? What'd you do to my ship?" Peter was instantly worried, and honestly he was more worried about Rocket (and by automatic extension Groot, who was guaranteed to be sitting in the co-pilot's seat whenever Rocket had the helm, whether full-grown or in a seedling pot) than he was about his ship. He could get another ship.

"Nah, they work just fine, it's that it's not -- safe -- to open 'em."

"Not safe --? Rocket, are you okay? Let me in there, right now!" He started hammering on the door again, starting to panic, and it was definitely about Rocket now and not the ship. He finally gave up hammering and was warming up the signal jammer to force the door open when Rocket turned on the comm on the wall of the stairwell and spoke.

"I'll open 'em, quit with the racket," Rocket said, and Peter was totally panicking now, because Rocket sounded wrong. "But just you. Nobody else."

"Rocket, what? Why?" The panic was a living thing, eating him alive. There was something _wrong_ in there.

"Just you," Rocket insisted. "Please."

And that was when Peter decided that if Rocket was all right when he got into that cockpit, he was going to kill him, because Rocket never said please, for any reason. It was even worse, hearing him say please, than it was when he'd said he would open the doors, his voice flat and tired and used-up sounding. Wrong-sounding. The only thing worse than Rocket saying please was the way he'd sounded the night after Groot died, and Peter was coward enough to admit to himself that he hoped he never heard that again, if necessary by being the one dead and gone while Rocket grieved for Peter.

The doors thumped open and a cloud of pink, chalky fog rolled out. "Hurry up, get in here, you're lettin' it get into the rest of the ship!" Rocket called, and Peter wrapped his arm across his face and threw himself upward and forward through the airlock. Peter staggered to his feet, choking in the thick air, as the doors behind him sealed shut again and the air exchangers chugged unhappily over the cloying, dusty pollen filling the atmosphere and coating every surface. Flowers shrouded every inch of the floor to an astonishing depth, drifts climbing up the walls to Peter's mid-thigh back by the airlock. Down at the front of the cockpit, he could see where Rocket had scraped the pollen away from the readout screens, and saw that the autopilot had been engaged for quite some time now. Rocket sat back limply in the pilot's chair, panting visibly, his jumpsuit unzipped and a strong, reeking smell of musk hanging over him. Groot sat in the seat next to him, curled up as much as a seven foot tall tree could in a seat made for a smaller humanoid, radiating misery and dropping bunches of the same pink-petalled flowers the rest of the ship was awash in.

If the rest of the ship was awash in the petals, the cockpit was the ocean the waves were born in. Drifts rose up to the level of Groot's waist and Rocket's mid-chest. Pollen hung, thick and stifling, in the air. "Groot's sick. I brought 'im up here so I could seal us up and use the secondary life support 'til his, ya know, symptoms stopped, but he's still goin'."

"What symptoms?" Peter was not keen on hearing the answer, because he was pretty sure he wouldn't like it. He was starting to feel warm, much warmer than even the lack of circulation due to the sluggish air scrubbers would account for. His clothes were too tight, and no matter how far he waded into the cockpit, the crush of blossoms still pressed against him like a thousand stroking hands. He sloshed his way forward through the flowers, passing the central seat directly behind the pilot's chairs, and missed the step down, feeling around for it with his toes in the sea of blossoms and miscalculating. He went down hard, momentarily disappearing beneath the surface of the petal-sea. Resurfacing with a furious explosion of blossoms, he angrily peeled his jacket off and threw it onto the center seat, hauling himself up from the morass of flowers, now covered with hundreds of petals sticking to the sweat on his face and neck and soaking through his t-shirt. When had he started sweating so heavily? He was finding it hard to concentrate, because the musk smell was distracting. Or was it the pollen scent? The wandering thoughts weren't a good sign, Peter realized. What had he been thinking about?

He was pretty sure it was Rocket's cock.

No. No, it was that his jumpsuit was unzipped, and looked to be pulled wide open in front, exposing his chest and the metal cybernetic reinforcements and screws in it -- Rocket did not willingly expose the parts of his body that bore the marks of his making, which was another tick in the "something is very wrong here" column. The only reason Peter knew that the other, more painful-looking implants were there on Rocket's back at all was from seeing him nude during processing at the Kyln, and from stroking his hands over Rocket's back in the dark.

That's why he was thinking of Rocket's cock. He only unzipped his jumpsuit when he fucked Peter, never took it off completely -- so if it was unzipped, it was likely because Rocket had his cock out. It had been three months since the Kyln and Xandar, since the stone, and they had fucked five times. Six, if you counted the night immediately after the battle. Peter had not seen Rocket naked since they started whatever this was they were doing; Rocket didn't even like for Peter to face him when his cock or his chest was exposed. He touched Peter; Peter didn't touch him -- Rocket's rule. Peter hadn't yet sucked Rocket's cock, hadn't even been allowed to see more than an accidental glance. The only time Rocket had even allowed Peter to hold him while they fucked was in a pitch-black bedroom, the night after Groot died, Rocket's shame over his body blunted by the safety of the dark.

Peter slogged closer to the pilot's chair like he was wading in waist-deep snow. He breathed in pollen with every breath, standing between Rocket and Groot's chairs and swaying slightly, rivulets of blossoms sliding away from him and into the larger pool swamping the cockpit.

"I looked it up on the 'net, when Groot started to drop these fuckin' pink daisies everywhere," Rocket said, and now that Peter was closer to him he could smell a strong reek of semen that rivaled the funk of musk. "I thought he could ride it out up here, and I could keep him company, he's feelin' crappy and I didn't wanna leave him alone...but it's affectin' me pretty bad, and by the time I realized I oughta get out, it was too late."

"Too late?" Peter was sure he was supposed to be worried about something, sure he'd been really worried when he came in here, but that wasn't important any more. 

"Yeah. I been havin' symptoms for about an hour or so now. I thought I could take care of it myself, but I've jerked 'til my dick is chafed and it ain't gettin' any better."

"I am Groot," said a sad, rumbly voice from the co-pilot's seat, where Groot huddled in misery, shivering so hard that blossoms launched themselves off his body in waves.

"Shut it, ya big idiot. I know ya didn't do this on purpose."

"Do what?" Peter asked. He wasn't too terribly interested in the answer; for some reason he just really wanted to sweep the pile of blossoms out of Rocket's lap and get a good, clear look at his cock.

"The last job we did, on the forest planet? Groot caught some kinda plant virus while we were there. He's through the worst of it, he should stop dropping the fuckin' flowers soon."

"If it's a plant disease, what's wrong with you?" He tried to drag his attention back, but his mind felt like it had been set on fire, along with every nerve ending in his body. He just really, really wanted to suck Rocket off all of a sudden. It was hard to concentrate on anything else.

"The pollen, numbnuts. Groot's doin' the Groot version of pukin' his guts out, but humies n' other mammals have, like, an allergic reaction to the flowers and the pollen on 'em. It makes ya wanna fuck."

"Seriously?" Peter mentally reviewed what he knew about various plant species which could cause an aphrodisiac affect on humanoids, and was not pleased with the conclusion he reached. "It's sex pollen," he said. "Sex pollen? Really? _Really?_ Did you know Groot could do this?" Peter was plenty focused on the problem at hand now, his earlier panic returning and chasing away the pollen-fogged thoughts that all centered around taking his clothes off as soon as possible, rolling in the goddamn flowers that were fucking all over him anyway, and getting Rocket to let him suck his dick.

"It ain't Groot, it's the virus or bacteria or whatever! He can't help bein' sick, or that we get sick from it too!"

"So let me get this straight: we're up to our chests in the flower-vomit of a seven foot tall tree man, and it's going to make us want to fuck until we pass out from dehydration?"

"No, just 'til it gets outta our systems in like four hours, but yeah, otherwise."

"Rocket, just -- WHY did you just bring him up here and lock the fucking doors and not, I don't know, tell anybody?" Peter snapped, frustrated.

"Because I thought I could handle it, okay? I ain't the kind of guy who needs anybody's help, I can do it myself."

"Well, obviously, Rocket, you can't." Peter spread his hands, indicating the whole of the cockpit, the flowers, Rocket's sorry state, and Groot shuddering and dropping more flowers while whimpering pitifully. "God, why can't you just trust me? When have I ever, ever done anything to give you the idea that you can't? Or to give you the idea I'd say no to you, if you asked for my help? If you'd told us what was happening we could have figured something out! If you'd trusted me, I could have figured something out!"

"Like what?" Rocket challenged, baring his teeth.

"I don't know! Something!"

"Your plans always suck," Rocket sneered.

"Look, my plan probably wouldn't have involved us standing around in Groot-puke and your imminent death from masturbation, so I think my plan is objectively better than yours," Peter replied irritably, his lifetime supply of endless saintly patience with Rocket and his shit running out completely. "If you'd just told us what was going on, we could have helped Groot. If you'd called me up here earlier, when you first started to feel weird, I could have helped you."

"Yeah, right. Who's gonna wanna help a fucked-up little animal freak like me, huh? Askin' for help is askin' to get fucked over," Rocket said, crossing his arms defensively and covering the augments in his chest.

"Oh my god, Rocket, really? That's what this is about? Jesus, have you not been paying attention for the last three months? We need you on the team -- how many times have you saved all of us, saved civilians, by building some crazy thing out of scraps? Don't you know that you're the fucking brains here? We couldn't do this without you. The way you plan things, design things -- you just toss off that shit like it's nothing. You build plasma cannons over breakfast. Your hobbies are breaking out of high security prisons and building weapons that can blow up moons. You're a fucking genius, man! You make me feel dumb all the time, but I don't mind, 'cause you're hilarious and awesome even when you're putting me down. And it isn't just that the team needs you in a fight. You're our friend. We care about you. _I_ care about you. For God's sake, Rocket, I've been offering you my attention on a silver fucking platter for _months_ and you always act like I'm trying to hand you a bomb! No, worse, if I offered you a bomb at least then you might appreciate it, not stalk off with your tail all stiff like I offended you by treating you like a person I care about!" 

Rocket gaped at Peter, mouth hanging open. Then his mouth closed with a snap and he was looking at Peter with slitted, suspicious eyes. "I'm not a person," he said, after a long pause.

Peter sighed. "Right now, I'm looking at a person. A person that I like, a whole lot, even when he's being a contrary, stubborn, thick-headed asshole. Like right now, for example."

"I don't look like a person, either," Rocket said, his face carefully expressionless, almost entirely closed against whatever Peter might say, and Peter knew he was waiting to hear exactly the right words out of Peter's mouth or that careful, blank expression would slam shut against Peter forever.

"So? I like looking at you. And I'm flexible. Like, really, _really_ flexible. My sexual orientation is basically 'anyone I think is awesome.' And I want you to know that right now, this is not the pollen talking -- okay, not 100% the pollen talking, more like 97% me, 3% pollen -- but I really do like looking at you. I wish that you'd let me see you. Or touch you. Or suck you off. Or all three. Preferably at the same time. While you're talking the way you do when you play with me, holy fuck I love that. Okay, the pollen is becoming a motivating factor, gotta admit, because I'm having a hard time coming up with anything else to say here except that if you won't just listen to me and let me suck your cock I'm probably gonna cry."

Rocket was gaping at him, mouth hanging open again.

"I fucked that up, didn't I?" Peter said miserably.

When he dared to look at Rocket's expression again, at least some of the closed-off aloofness was gone. It was not a soft expression, by any means. Just less hard. It was the same look that had been on Rocket's face that first time in the Kyln, when Peter had rolled over after they were done. "Wouldn't wanna make you cry, you big baby," Rocket said finally. "Get over here."

Peter shucked off his t-shirt so fast that he almost lost his balance and fell again, to possibly disappear for good into the ocean of petals. He slung an arm over the back of the pilot's chair for stability while he yanked his pants down, getting as far as his knees before realizing belatedly that his boots were still on, and barked out a "Shove over, I gotta sit," at Rocket. Rocket just glared tiredly at him, raising his arms up above the blossoms and pointing down. 

"I gotta hard-on so chubbed it's makin' me light-headed, Quill. How the fuck am I supposed to shove over?"

"Can I pick you up, then?" Peter asked.

Rocket eyed him critically for a minute, as if deciding if Peter would be granted the honor that only Groot was ever afforded. "Okay. But don't think you got the right to just pick me up anytime you want, got it? Ask me first."

"Got it," Peter answered, and held his arms out for Rocket to settle into while Peter dropped into the seat, dislodging masses of petals that sloshed everywhere in ripples. Peter ended up sitting in the pilot's chair with Rocket sitting in the crook of his arm, steadying himself with a hand on Peter's shoulder. If Peter raised his arm just to shoulder height, Rocket was poised so that his cock was right in front of Peter's face. He raised his free hand up to stroke as he looked his fill, noting the variations in skin tone, the slight differences between his own Terran human cock and what Rocket had been given when he was made. The differences were so slight as to be unimportant as soon as they registered, and when he was done looking he raised his eyes up to meet Rocket's, brushing his lips over the head of Rocket's cock.

Rocket was looking down at him with something like wonder. It was the most open and soft expression he'd ever seen on Rocket's face, almost all the anger and suspicion gone from it, and it hurt Peter's heart to see it, because he knew he was seeing Rocket's amazement that someone was touching him freely, of their own choice, and was not repulsed or disgusted by him. He thought of asking if anyone had done this for Rocket before, but he was afraid the answer would be no, and then he would have to spend his free time hunting down everyone who had ever made Rocket feel like he was beneath them and break every bone in their bodies. So he just said, "Ready?" When Rocket nodded, he swallowed him down to the root.

Rocket stayed quiet, as he always did when he was actually fucking Peter, but Peter could tell he was enjoying it. Rocket's entire body was shivering in the crook of Peter's arm, and he was breathing hard, but the fantastically filthy shit that always unreeled from his mouth when he was touching Peter was absent. He reached over with his free hand and snagged Rocket's hand from where it rested on his shoulder, pressing it against the side of his head and threading Rocket's fingers into his hair. Rocket got the idea and wound his hand more securely into Peter's hair and then gave it a good yank. Peter moaned around his mouthful of cock, and dropped his hand into his own lap underneath the mounds of pink flowers. He was fully under the effect of the pollen now, diamond-hard and aching. The pollen's course through his and Rocket's systems would take hours, and they would both be painfully aroused for the duration, unable to relieve it even with repeated orgasms. 

Peter couldn't be worried about it, with the infection racing through his body and setting every nerve alight. He jacked himself furiously under the blanket of blossoms, petals rolling down in landslides of pink. Rocket was thrusting his hips forward uncertainly now, little needy pushes, and Peter moaned around his cock encouragingly, drawing back just enough tell Rocket, "Talk."

"Huh?" Rocket gasped, and Peter nudged his head against Rocket's hand, now lax with the fingers still threaded into Peter's hair. Peter drew his mouth back down and off Rocket's shaft.

"Fucking pull my hair and talk to me, man, jesus, do I have to do all the work around here?" Peter whined. Rocket pulled his hair so viciously that his eyes watered, and Peter grinned up at Rocket around his mouthful of Rocket's cock.

"Then fuckin' keep yer mouth full," Rocket gritted out, eyes fixed on Peter's eyes and mouth by greedy turns, soaking up everything he could see as if he thought that this might never happen again and he had to store up every single moment.

He thrust his hips forward experimentally, harder than before, and when Peter moaned appreciatively and leaned forward even more, he got bolder and pressed forward until Peter gagged. He pulled back immediately, afraid of hurting Peter, and Peter freed his mouth long enough to say "No, no, s'good, keep going."

"Want me to face-fuck you, Quill? That it?" Rocket asked, both his hands in Peter's hair now, and Peter was inwardly cheering, because sweet baby jesus, Rocket talking dirty was one of his favorite things ever. Rocket was getting more confident, smoothly thrusting into Peter's mouth and throat, using his leverage on Peter's scalp to hold Peter in place. Rocket was getting closer and closer to coming, and Peter was too. Rocket was slamming his hips against Peter's face now, and Peter was just riding it out, letting Rocket use him while he jacked himself off to the accompaniment of Rocket telling him how he was going to fuck Peter so many times before this was over, he was gonna fuckin' wear him out. Peter was pretty thrilled with the whole situation.

So of course that was when Drax and Gamora broke open the inner cockpit doors by force.

"What are you doing?" Drax asked calmly, while Gamora watched Peter slowly take Rocket's cock out of his mouth and lower him from his shoulder to be cradled against Peter's chest, shielding him from their view from the waist down.

"Quill's suckin' my cock, what's it to you?" Rocket snarled. 

"Sex pollen," Peter said. "Groot is sick and he's barfing up sex pollen. You have about ten minutes of rational thought left, now that you're in here. Enjoy it."

"So now we are infected as well. Why did you not tell us this over the comms before we had to break down the doors, Peter?" Gamora asked, her reasonable tone touched with a slight tinge of murder.

"Uh...we were busy?"

"You were busy," Gamora echoed.

"Yeah, Quill was suckin' my cock, which I would very much like to get back to, by the way."

"So what are we to do now, Star Lord?" Gamora asked sarcastically. "Drax and I are infected as well, are we to just take our clothes off and roll around and mate like animals, as you are?"

"Hey --!" Rocket started to launch himself over Peter's shoulder and the back of the pilot's chair, but had to content himself with snarling and baring his teeth at Gamora while Peter grimly hung on to his midsection. 

"No, no, no, Rocket, don't, just -- please calm down, that's my _ear_ you're clawing, not the seat, fuck --" Rocket finally subsided against Peter's shoulder, panting with rage. To Gamora, Peter snapped, "Don't. Just don't say shit like that, okay? He's not an animal."

"Fine," Gamora sniffed. "But it is still your fault that we are in this situation. What are we going to do now?"

"I am Groot," Groot said, straightening up from the co-pilot's chair. His illness seemed to have passed now; he was no longer dropping drifts of blossoms. Peter had honestly forgotten he was there. He figured that Rocket probably hadn't forgotten -- that would be like forgetting you had hands or something. 

"What, vent the cockpit?" Rocket asked Groot.

"I am Groot," Groot reiterated, and Rocket slumped in thought for a moment, still clasped in the crook of Peter's arm.

"Groot's right," he said after a moment. "All us fleshbodies can go back into the crew cabin n' seal the airlock at the bottom of the shaft -- 'cause _some assholes_ broke this one here -- n' Groot will stay up here and vent the cockpit to vacuum. He don't need oxygen for breathin' like we do, and ventin' the atmo is simple enough for 'im to do, just pushin' a button. Once all the pollen n' shit is vented, he can restore pressure n' then come down an' join us."

"Join us in what?" Drax asked.

"If you don't think all of us are gonna be gettin' busy together inside a' ten minutes, then you got one hell of a shock comin' up," Rocket said, leering.

"This is a good plan," Peter said. "I like this plan."

"Why would Groot join us?" Drax asked, perplexed. "He does not appear to be suffering from the effects of the pollen as Quill and Rocket are." He paused for a moment, looking uncharacteristically introspective. "I believe that I too am beginning to suffer from the effects of the pollen. My penis is extremely hard."

"That's...nice. Trust me, guys, Groot will have just as much fun as anybody, as long as he's close enough to smell the pheromones coming off of us," Peter said.

"I am Groot," Groot said, and grinned the dopey, perverted grin he always wore when he smelled a particularly strong whiff of phermones from Peter or Rocket.

"This cannot be my life," Gamora lamented. "Will I hate my life even more if I ask how, precisely, you know that, Peter?"

"Uh, personal...experience?"

"You've had sex with Groot?" Drax asked, confused.

"Kinda? He helped. Me and Rocket, I mean. I didn't actually get fucked by Groot. It was Rocket," Peter realized he was babbling but could not stop. "You know, the whole 'our booty' thing in prison? Uh, me and Rocket have kind of, you know, been fucking since then. And Groot sometimes watches us. Well, smells us, really."

"It is good that you have forged a bond with each other. No one should be alone." Peter heard a sniffle, and glanced over to see Drax's eyes gleaming wetly. Then Drax said, "Perhaps it is the pollen, but I feel that my wife would want me to enjoy my new life and new bosom companions to the fullest. I would greatly enjoy bestowing oral sex upon Gamora."

"Whatever, you humies work it out amongst yourselves. Let's go downstairs an' let Groot vent the cockpit, an' not so coincidently so I can continue to get my cock sucked."

Gamora was quietly sputtering, still back in the part of the conversation where Drax casually offered to pleasure her. As he stood up, holding Rocket facing against his chest so that he wouldn't feel so exposed, Peter saw that she was grinding her thighs together, just the tiniest bit.

"Gamora? How you feeling?" Peter asked gently.

"Warm. Warm all over. Very single-minded, it's hard to concentrate on anything but...that...when my mind...wanders."

"You don't have to do anything you don't wanna," Rocket declared. He reached up and yanked Peter's hair like he was a horse Rocket was riding until Peter caught on and turned his back to Gamora and Drax again so that Rocket was facing them. "Nobody's gonna make anybody do anything they don't wanna, so long's I'm around. One a' ya does somethin' the other one don't like, you're gonna have to deal with me." Peter's heart stung as he listened, because he was pretty sure that Rocket's promise came from the same place that had prompted him to offer Peter protection in the Kyln, bounty or not, and that was a place of nightmares survived.

"I understand, my friend," Drax said. "The same goes for me."

"I agree as well," Gamora said. "I have not yet known mating for pleasure's sake in my life. If I am to know it now, better it be with those I trust."

"You're not a virgin, though, are ya?" Rocket asked, and Peter glanced across his shoulder at his face. He wasn't leering, or taunting; he was asking to confirm a suspicion.

"No," Gamora answered, and even though Peter couldn't see her from his angle, he knew that she and Rocket were gazing steadily at each other. Rocket's face said his suspicion was confirmed, and Peter's heart stung for both of them. These people -- his crew -- had come through so much darkness to get here, with him, now. A part of him that was untouched by the pollen wanted to extend the tiny, fragile circle that had been, until now, just him and Rocket -- and Groot, in his own weird way, hovering at their edges. Something felt very right about that, it made him recall fleeting, burning impressions of sharing one mind as they pulled each other away from the destruction the stone sang to them. Each hand linking them together had been a step away from the yawning emptiness inside the stone, toward each other.

Rocket was yanking his hair again, so Peter shook off his darker thoughts. "Jeez, man, cool it -- it's my hair, not a steering wheel."

"Whatever, as soon as you get your ass downstairs I'm gonna drive it like I stole it."

"You're a romantic bastard," Peter sighed, and hefted Rocket up more securely in his arms while imagining the logistics of getting down the precarious stairs in his current state of undress and with his current burden. The stairs were actually more stair-like now, instead of a steep pitch of shallow, slick footholds, after the _Milano_ had been rebuilt and expanded by Nova Corps, but Peter was pretty sure that he would probably eat a faceful of decking and drop Rocket on his ass anyway if he tried to descend the stairs with an armful of raccoon and his pants around his knees. 

"S'why you love me," Rocket said grandly, and Peter stole a look at his face. The confidence and volume of Rocket's usual bombastic boasts was back, but his expression betrayed his sureness that Peter would loudly deny that he cared about him at all and drop him on the floor in disgust.

_Oh, Rocket,_ Peter thought. 

"Yeah, it is," Peter said.

Rocket gaped at him for a second, and then quickly recovered, schooling his face into a cocky grin. Peter let him, but he hugged Rocket to his chest just a little bit tighter for a second before he did. "'Course it is," Rocket sniffed. "If you love me so much, why don't we get outta here so we can get back to what we were doin'?"

"I'm gonna have to put you down for a second, then," Peter said, trying to clear as much of the blossom-pile as possible from the seat before depositing Rocket in it. He glanced up and saw Gamora watching them, Drax just disappearing down the steps behind her. She was looking at them curiously. There was no judgement in her gaze that Peter could see, but Rocket bristled nonetheless, when he looked to see what had Peter's attention.

"What're you lookin' at?" he snarled, and Gamora stepped back a pace uncertainly.

"You are still his friend," she said to Peter, sounding confused. "You have each other at your most vulnerable, at your weakest, yet you still speak fondly to each other and there is no threat in your movements. It is the same now between you as it would be at any other time. You are still...kind to each other, despite the abrasive way you tease each other. I have not seen mating be this way before."

"It can be like this, though," Peter said, "It could, you know, be all of us." He looked down at Rocket and was dismayed to see his face closing off right in front of his eyes. He realized that Rocket was thinking that Peter would start fucking Gamora and that would be the end of what he'd had with Peter, and he was mentally preparing himself for it as Peter watched. Christ, not thirty seconds ago he'd all but outright told Rocket he loved him; now all Peter could see was an asteroid field of moments just like this, stretching off endlessly in every direction. 

To Gamora, he said, "Go on down, we'll be there in a minute, okay?" She blinked at him in puzzlement but went, and Peter knew then that the pollen really was affecting her. To Rocket, he said, "Hey, you know I meant it, when I said I --"

"Whatever, let's get outta here n' let Groot vent the room," Rocket rushed in, as if he was not willing to hear Peter finish that sentence.

He knew from past experience that at this point, he could talk until he lost his voice and Rocket would not allow one word of it to affect him. He dropped the hand he'd been extending to touch Rocket's shoulder and concentrated on getting the greaves with the jet nozzles off his lower legs before tackling his boots and then, thank god, his trousers. Why had he ever thought that jet boots and skin-tight pants were cool? This was dumb. Finally free at last, he held out his hands to Rocket but waited for his nod, making good on his promise not to pick him up unasked.

Rocket probably would have refused him, if doing so hadn't meant he would have to walk through a roomful of flowers piled twice as high as his head, but he stood up in the seat and grudgingly stepped into the crook of Peter's arm and allowed himself to be carried by a fully nude Peter to the stairs. Peter set him down at the top and climbed down halfway, then turned around and held up his hands again for Rocket to be lifted down. Sheaves of blossoms spilled all around them, raining down onto Peter while he waited for Rocket to make up his mind whether he would consent to be carried again, or insist on making it down the stairs on his own. 

"Come on, man, I thought you wanted to get your cock sucked," Peter complained.

Rocket took it as the peace offering Peter meant it to be and replied, "You're such a slut," while reaching out for Peter's arms.

"S'why you love me," Peter said with deliberate breeziness, carefully not looking at Rocket as he pulled him to his chest and climbed down the last of the stairs.

Rocket buried his face against Peter's neck for a moment and muttered, sounding defeated, "Don't keep makin' it worse, Quill. It's gonna be hard enough when I ain't got this kinda thing anymore, so don't make it any worse."

Peter kept his back to the cabin, busying himself with sealing the bottom airlock and verifying that Groot was preparing to vent the atmo up in the cockpit. "Rocket, I'm not going anywhere," he muttered back, voice pitched for just the two of them. "You claimed me at the Kyln. The night after -- after Groot died, I promised you I would never leave, so you're stuck with me, dude. Sorry, them's the breaks. Sometimes you win, sometimes you end up with idiot Terrans you can't get rid of." He squeezed Rocket tighter for a moment, and Rocket chuffed an irritated noise into Peter's ear. "Nothing that I might ever do with anybody here besides you has anything to do with how I feel about you. I'm not gonna forget about you just because I was with somebody else. That's not how I work. I don't know how intense this shit with the pollen is gonna be, but if you don't want me to touch anyone but you, I won't."

"You'd do that?" Rocket said into Peter's neck, still keeping his face hidden.

"Yeah," Peter answered, the 'of course, you dumbass,' implicit in his tone. "But --"

"Fuck, I knew there was gonna be a 'but'," Rocket snarled, and started pushing at Peter's chest with his hands, trying to free himself from Peter's grip.

"But --" Peter reiterated firmly. "You gotta let me touch you."

Rocket stilled immediately. "What?"

"Fair's fair, man. I just want to. You don't -- you don't ever let me. And I just -- want to."

"You don't wanna -- touch Gamora?" Rocket asked, glancing over Peter's shoulder to where Peter could hear soft noises from one of the couches that had been installed along the walls on either side of the now-larger common area. Peter kept his eyes on Rocket's face, though, knowing if he looked away right now, Rocket would take it as yet more proof that Peter didn't mean what he was saying.

"If I'm being honest with you -- she's hot, yeah." Rocket began to sort of wilt in Peter's arms and for a wild second Peter just wanted to shake him and scream in frustration -- why did this have to be so hard, so nerve-wracking, so fraught with hidden traps and triggers? "But she isn't _you_ ," he rushed on, desperate to make Rocket understand him. "Why would I be asking if I could touch you if I was thinking about her? Come on, man, please just trust me, okay?"

"Why?"

"Why trust me? Because...just because, okay?"

"You suck at this touchy-feely crap," Rocket said. "This is like 12% of a convincing speech."

Peter shifted Rocket in his arms so he could see his face. "Do you know why I put up with so much of your shit? And Rocket, dude, you can be an asshole sometimes."

"If I'm such an asshole, then why?" Rocket challenged, crossing his arms. "Fuckin' enlighten me."

"Because, you enormous shithead, I love you," Peter said, and waited.

Rocket was staring at him with such a baffled, suspicious, uncomprehending look on his face that Peter was afraid for an instant that he would start braying out laughter, and if he did that, Rocket would probably beat him to death with his bare hands, three and a half feet shorter or not.

"It's the pollen," Rocket finally said, and his face cleared from confusion into a sour, cynical sneer. "That's all, just the fuckin' pollen makin' you say shit you don't mean."

"Nope," Peter said calmly. "This is all me. The pollen is saying that I could probably drive nails with my hard-on right now and can we please get back to me making out with your dick. The 'I love you' is one hundred percent Star Lord." Peter gave him the scoundrel's grin that had dropped pants all over the galaxy, dropping a sleazy wink for good measure.

"Oh my _god_ you are such a fuckin' dork sometimes, why am I even here?" Rocket moaned despairingly. "God, fine, whatever, Star Dork, me too."

"You love me?" Peter needled, fondly.

"YES," Rocket said, "Can we get the orgy started now and stop talking about this for fuck's sake?"

Laughing, Peter turned to face the common area, he and Rocket finally seeing what they had been hearing -- soft noises and murmurs and bodies shifting against cloth -- and both of them drew in a breath. "I think they got started without us."

**Author's Note:**

> Coming up in the next chapter: group sex under the influence of sex pollen, Guardian style!


End file.
